Amazon Planet was founded in 2003 in the city of Santarém, a small town located on the banks of the Amazon River in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. Its founder, Gabriel Paduano, is an adventurous globetrotter who was born and studied in the US (BA in Philosophy at NYU and MBA at UC Berkeley), grew up in Europe (Italy and Greece) and has made the Amazon his home.

While running a successful eco-tourism agency there, Gabriel repeatedly heard from his clients that the açai offered on his tours tasted very different (and better) from the one available in the US. Upon visiting his family in San Diego, CA, he understood why: Both ready to drink açai beverages and made to order açai smoothies contained very little açai - some of them, hardly any açai at all! "Pure" açai smoothie packs, on the other hand, had the essential flaw of containing various additives. One of them in particular, citric acid, has a major effect on the taste of açai, turning its naturally mild, dark-chocolaty taste into an artificially tart, tangy flavor.

So, Gabriel and his team of motivated young locals started working on the project of bringing real açai to the US. After a lot of research, development and experimentation they concluded that no reconstituted, chemically altered or otherwise processed product could ever get close to real Amazon açai. The only way to bring real Amazon açai to the US would be to freeze freshly made, 100% pure açai. Which is exactly what our Wonderfruit Açai^® product line is all about.